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Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Aaron Rents is a lease-to-own retailer primarily focusing on furniture and appliances. The company operates under the names Aaron's and Rimco and is segmented into three main divisions; sales and lease ownership, corporate furnishings, and manufacturing.

Aaron's discovered in 2013 that the Hispanic market is its “strongest,” demographic, CFO and EVP Gilbert Danielson stated during the retailer's Q4 2013 earnings call (research the population, according to U.S. Census data.

Aaron’s Online: Aaron’s launched its e-commerce pilot platform last summer and expects it to go live in early 2015. Online initiatives are expected to have a minimal impact on sales in the short-term, but long-term Aaron’s believes e-commerce will be a substantial revenue driver. This comes after Aaron’s debuted text messaging capabilities also last summer for marketing and renewals, as part of the “

Sustained Struggles: Like rival Rent-A-Center (research here), Aaron’s consumer goods leasing business, which accounts for 71% of revenue, is struggling as the US economy continues to improve. Rent-to-own companies typically perform well during economic downturns but sales start to fall as the economy improves, because shoppers with higher disposable income go back to traditional retailers and poorer customers still remain cautious about spending.

Media Spend: Aaron’s spends about $30 million annually on advertising, skewing heavily towards network and cable TV ads during the second quarter. ISpot.tv reports that Aaron’s allocated $22 million towards TV ads in 2014, the majority of which went to sports programming (see iSpot.tv’s donut chart).

New Decision Maker: In November, John W. Robinson III, EVP of Aaron’s and CEO of Progressive Leasing (which Aaron’s acquired in April 2014) was appointed CEO of Aaron’s. Gil Danielson, who served as interim CEO, stayed on as CFO.